Frustrated farmers could become a midterm problem for Republicans

Farmers are a key voting group for Republicans, but their votes could be on the line, with the Iran war and President Trump’s tariff and trade wars driving up production costs along with diesel and fertilizer prices.

The Trump administration has been rolling out financial assistance packages and projects for farmers in hopes of shoring up the electorate in next week’s midterm elections. Yet they may be right to be anxious about the voting bloc’s turnout.

“Yes, I think they’re nervous. Yes, I think they should be, and yes, I think that farmers are pretty ticked off,” said Amy Frederiksen, a former Minnesota Republican Senate majority leader.

Frederiksen said farmers “don’t want to vote for a lot of the Democrats’ nonsense.”

“They want to vote for Republicans, but this is their business, these are their families, and it doesn’t appear that anyone’s listening,” she said.

Republican House and Senate candidates in farm states like Ohio, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska are facing unexpectedly tight races this midterm season. Some have pressured the Trump administration and Congress to address the rising costs for farmers.

Trump won 69 percent of the rural vote in 2024, but recent polls have shown that the voting group is not happy with how they’ve fared under Trump since the election.

“It has to be a reflection of tariffs, input costs, food costs, markets being barred, and diesel and gas prices,” Frederiksen said.

A poll from KFF and The Associated Press found that roughly 6 in 10 rural voters disapprove of how Trump is handling the economy, and the group overwhelmingly named the cost of living as the top issue they want a candidate to talk about.

Farmers are struggling with prices amid the ongoing Iran war. The average price of diesel per gallon is roughly $6.35, and fertilizer costs have also risen. Ninety-four percent said their financial situation has worsened or remained the same from last year, a survey released by the American Farm Bureau Federation in April........

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